Former journalist Peter Greste is going on a hunger strike to protest the continued imprisonment of Egyptian democracy advocate Alaa Abd el-Fattah.
He will travel to London to protest alongside Mr el-Fattah’s mother, who has already passed 100 days of her own hunger strike.
Professor Greste, who was imprisoned in Egypt for 14 months a devade ago on trumped-up terrorism grounds, said he owed his life to Mr el-Fattah.
“He was one of the first people I met when I was in prison, he helped me understand the psychology of prison at a time when I was struggling,” he told AAP.
“What he’s going through has been a grave injustice.”
Alaa Abdel-Fattah has been arrested and imprisoned in Egypt multiple times for his activism. (AP PHOTO)
Mr el-Fattah helped him devise a strategy for his release as they framed the arrest around press freedom, he said.
Prof Grest will conduct the three-week hunger strike in the hopes he can use his influence to bring attention to his cause given the Egyptian democracy activist is a dual British citizen.
“I thought of a hunger strike when I saw what his mother was doing, I’ve been frustrated for a long time because there’s not much I could do here from Australia,” he said.
While he doesn’t know whether the protest will reach Egypt or influence any immediate change, that wasn’t the point as all actions help bring attention to the cause and inspire collective action and pressure, he said.
“What we have to do is keep fighting for what is right,” the former journalist said.
“If you measure a step in a campaign about whether someone will be free, all the steps up until that point would be considered failures.
“But that misses the point because the only reason I got out was because of that collective action.”
Peter Greste in a defendants’ cage in a courthouse near Tora prison in Cairo, Egypt in 2014. (AP PHOTO)
Mr el-Fattah has been arrested and imprisoned in Egypt multiple times for his activism and criticism of the government.
He was sentenced to five years in prison in 2019 for “disseminating false news undermining national security”.
He was set for release in September 2024 but Egyptian authorities refused to release him, instead pushing back his release date to January 2027 after ruling out pre-trial detention as time served.
The extension of his detention was criticised by international humanitarian groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.
“Authorities have already robbed Abdel Fattah of a decade of his life, adding another two years to his sentence is unspeakably cruel. They should release him without further delay,” the latter said in a statement at the time.